In my broken legged state I've had a lot of time to think and lately I've been thinking a lot about pop culture in Young Adult novels.
In some cases I love pop culture references. There are many books where I do a little whoop when the characters mention a pop culture reference and it adds something to the character and the story as a whole. Some of these titles feature in my top 10 favourite books.
However I have started to see a new phenomenon: The rise of the forced pop culture reference.
I have found that these regularly appear in Young Adult novels written by authors who usually write for adults (although not exclusively) and they seem to me to be thrown in to try and make the author's writing seem cool and 'down with the kids'. I've got the point where I get quite cross about it and feel like the author is being really patronising and condensing. If you don't want to write for teenagers why bother? It seems to me to be to an effort to spin as much money as possible and break into another market
While forced and patronising pop references are driving me insane what I find even worse if when an author is trying to be cool and gets it so wrong. In a long running vampire series I cringed and gave up completely on the series after the author had the gay characters singing to song from musicals in an ultra camp way which was so stereotypical it was painful and in mind not at all a realistic portrayal of an ordinary gay teenage boy. In another case of late I gave up on a book where the 15 year old main character and her best friend were refering to vajazzles. I'm not a prude and I know teenagers do all manner of things before they probably ought to and I enjoy books where they do portray teenage sex realistically but I thought this was so inappropriate to the age of the character that it actually made me shudder.
So my question is what do you think? Do authors force pop culture references to appear cool? Do they add to the story? Am I being over the top on this one?
In some cases I love pop culture references. There are many books where I do a little whoop when the characters mention a pop culture reference and it adds something to the character and the story as a whole. Some of these titles feature in my top 10 favourite books.
However I have started to see a new phenomenon: The rise of the forced pop culture reference.
I have found that these regularly appear in Young Adult novels written by authors who usually write for adults (although not exclusively) and they seem to me to be thrown in to try and make the author's writing seem cool and 'down with the kids'. I've got the point where I get quite cross about it and feel like the author is being really patronising and condensing. If you don't want to write for teenagers why bother? It seems to me to be to an effort to spin as much money as possible and break into another market
While forced and patronising pop references are driving me insane what I find even worse if when an author is trying to be cool and gets it so wrong. In a long running vampire series I cringed and gave up completely on the series after the author had the gay characters singing to song from musicals in an ultra camp way which was so stereotypical it was painful and in mind not at all a realistic portrayal of an ordinary gay teenage boy. In another case of late I gave up on a book where the 15 year old main character and her best friend were refering to vajazzles. I'm not a prude and I know teenagers do all manner of things before they probably ought to and I enjoy books where they do portray teenage sex realistically but I thought this was so inappropriate to the age of the character that it actually made me shudder.
So my question is what do you think? Do authors force pop culture references to appear cool? Do they add to the story? Am I being over the top on this one?
Comments
Pop references can be done, and done well, but they tend to date books too - in fact, one of my favourite books of all time by Charles de Lint has aged so badly I cringe when I read it now - talking about boomboxes and rolling cigarettes and the whole hippy movement. It worked for that time, but modern readers will be jarred out of the story.
I have feelings about this blogpost! Well done.
Look at Gulliver's Travels, a political satire, is so full of contemporary refernces that it is almost always abridged, with two of four chapters missing, so we can even enjoy it today!